Trade By Barter In Nigerian Politics And Elections -By Adeyemi Adesanya

Bartering is the exchange of goods and services for other goods and services without the involvement or transaction of money. In simple terms, it means I give you what you need, and in return, you give me what I need. On the other side, politics is defined as the collection of activities related to group decision-making or other types of power dynamics between people, such as the allocation of resources or status. In Nigeria, politics is seen as a game. Some refer to it as a dirty game in the early days of democracy, when it was a do-or-die affair. In the modern-day democracy or politics of Nigeria, I refer to politics as a game of the smartest or the wisest.

The issue of barter trade in Nigerian politics has been in existence since the early days of democracy. I classify this barter system into two categories: (a) food for the vote barter system and (b) service for the vote barter system.

The food-for-vote barter system is the most common system used by most politicians or power-seeking individuals to attain political posts. It is a system where politicians aspiring for a political post share or distribute foods or food items among the masses in exchange for their votes, directly or indirectly, to get what they want. At first, I wondered why the citizens would exchange their votes for probably a cup of rice and beans that wouldn’t last them for two days. I said to myself, “Could it be illiteracy? No, it can’t because a majority of the people are educated to some level, maybe not at the college or university level. I noticed that it wasn’t because of illiteracy but because of ignorance and abject poverty and hunger in the country. The politician knew this and kept taking advantage of it whenever they were aspiring for political posts, later abandoning the citizens after getting what they needed.

The service for the vote barter system, on the other hand, is only being practiced by a few individuals or politicians in society. A wealthy individual who stays in a particular environment and does not have political ambitions or maybe he does need not be told before the people in his environment can feel his impact. For example, a wealthy man who stays in an environment that suffers from lack of water or bad roads decides to take it upon himself to do or provide all these amenities to the environment, not expecting anything in return but doing it for the sake of humanity. This man here has just offered community service to the people of his environment without being expectant. If peradventure, he decides to run for the local government chairman in that community, the people would troop out willingly in masses to support him with their votes because he served humanity. Some individuals might also use the service-for-vote approach under the guise of helping humanity, which they are not. This can be called an “expectant service for the vote barter system”. They only perform community service to campaign or in the hope of receiving votes, after which, after getting what they want, they neglect the people again and come back to do the same when they need their votes again.

I’m glad that the new generation of Nigerians is awake and has decided to embrace the non-expectant service for the vote barter system. In the just concluded 2023 general election, we can deduce various candidates that fall under the different categories of the politics barter system. There was a candidate who has a proven track record of integrity and transparency and is also willing to serve the people. The people exchange their votes for these qualities. On the other hand, some candidates tried to buy their way in and disbursed a lot of food items during the campaigning period, which is always done once every four years, but still, we have some people who exchanged their votes for these also.